


don't fix what's not broken (don't speak the unspoken)

by astarisms



Category: The Daevabad Trilogy - S. A. Chakraborty
Genre: BIG BIG EOG SPOILERS!!!, EoG spoilers!!!, Heavy Angst, I needed this conversation, M/M, i did not go into detail with the violence but it is still mentioned, i need to know how they get past... that, if shan wont answer the hard questions i will, if you know you know, just in case, which is why the archive warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26161135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astarisms/pseuds/astarisms
Summary: he hears the whispers, but he doesn't want to listen.
Relationships: Jamshid e-Pramukh/Muntadhir al Qahtani
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27





	don't fix what's not broken (don't speak the unspoken)

Jamshid doesn’t want to ask.

He doesn’t want to ask because even the thought of his father makes his hands shake so violently he can’t hold Muntadhir’s.

(He is well past his majority and was no longer dependent on his father anyways but the word  _ orphan _ rings in his head and he feels as small and lost as a child who had wandered away from their parents in a crowd.)

He doesn’t want to ask because there is so much he’s still trying to process, like the mother he’d never known, there and gone in an instant.

(How many nights had he dreamed of a mother’s love, her kind words and tender touch, bringing comfort to him when he woke from nightmares, only to discover she  _ was _ the nightmare, bringing more death and destruction and pain to his city and the people he loved than any monster he could have imagined hiding under his bed.)

He doesn’t want to ask because Muntadhir is  _ different _ now and he feels the words lodge in his throat before they’ve even formed. 

(His lover goes quiet sometimes, his eye haunted, and Jamshid wonders not for the first time what his mother had put him through, and if he’ll ever not feel guilty by association, as if  _ he _ had put that look on Muntadhir’s face by merit of his blood, and his closure does not feel worth the price of Muntadhir’s trauma.)

Jamshid doesn’t want to ask.

And he doesn’t have to.

He spends weeks trying to find the right words in the right order, weeks ignoring the pitying, sympathetic stares on his back, weeks tuning out the whispers of  _ tragic… gruesome… does he know?  _

Does he know? Does he know what? Does he want to?

Over and over, he opens his mouth to form the question, and over and over, the words die in his throat. His hands shake. His mind spins. His guilt very nearly consumes him.

_ Do I need to know? _

His father is gone. No amount of knowing will bring him back, Jamshid knows, but for all the mistakes he had made, Kaveh had loved his son. Jamshid had never wanted for anything, not even as a child in the countryside. And to the end, he had only been trying to give his child  _ more _ . 

A birthright he didn’t know about. A throne he didn’t want.

But he had tried to give Jamshid the world. And he had died for it. The least he could do for his father was learn how he had spent his last moments. Had it been quick? Painful? Had he suffered? Had he called out for him? Had he even known Jamshid was  _ alive _ ? 

Had he died by blade? Arrows? Poison?

His breath catches at that last thought, and the hitch forces the rest into irregularity, and he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes in an effort to relieve the familiar burn of tears. How ironic a death by poison would have been, for his father who had lost sleep cleaning up the mess Jamshid had made with the younger prince, to ensure that particular mistake would never lead back to him.

_ I don’t want to know _ . 

But it’s Muntadhir who decides for him, one day, Muntadhir who looks at him in anguish and before Jamshid can open his mouth, can tell him to stop, can tell him hedoesn’t want to know—

“I did it,” he whispers, and there’s a jagged, raw note to his voice that, combined with the confession, nearly sends Jamshid to his knees. “I killed Kaveh.”

And he’d known, at least part of him had, buried under layers of denial and hope and dread, but hearing it out loud is not something he was ready for, is not something he thinks he could have ever been prepared for. He reaches out to steady himself on the nearest surface, the words ringing in his ears, seeping into his bloodstream, until every beat of his heart is an echo:

_ I did it. I killed Kaveh. _

“How?” he asks, though it’s so hard to force the word out, by the time it squeezes through his teeth it’s nearly unrecognizable. But Muntadhir has known him for more than a decade, and it is not so hard for the former emir to untangle the twisted, painful syllable, and he pales even further. Jamshid’s organs all leap into his throat, his lungs compressing, his heart squeezing, and he wishes he could take the question back in an instant.

_ I don’t want to know. _

“A... a coup. During the coup. We tried to… me and Tamer, we tried to overthrow Manizheh. To weaken her.” Muntadhir’s voice is quieter than he’s ever heard it, distant and haunted, barely above a whisper. “By getting rid of the Afshin and…” 

_ Stop _ , Jamshid wants to say, but he doesn’t, because he can’t. 

“We poisoned him. Darayavahoush. In the carriage. Tamer’s brother,” Muntadhir chokes, as if the thought of the younger man hurt him, “injected him with iron.” Jamshid recalls on the roof that day, watching Nahri place her hands on Dara and  _ pull _ , a cloud of iron shards tainting the air, floating about her head like a dark crown before dispersing. He had not known that bit was more or less Muntadhir’s doing, and at another time, in another circumstance, he might have been proud of his cunning, the wit and strength and deception it must have taken to pull something like off right under the Afshin’s nose. 

But Jamshid knows the story is not finished, and so instead he is filled with dread and nausea.

_ I don’t want to know _ .

“And then…when he was…after he…” Muntadhir swallowed hard, meeting Jamshid’s eyes. “There were a lot of angry djinn, Jamshid. And no longer anyone to protect Kaveh. They…they tore him apart. Right there in the street. And I didn’t—I never touched him, but I didn’t stop them, I…” He stops, his eyes wide, unfocused, his jaw quivering. And though Jamshid would be the first, under the usual conditions, to comfort Muntadhir, would be the one to pull the sun from the sky if only to rid his lover of the shadows darkening his expression, he does not move to do any of that.

“Oh,” Jamshid says instead, faintly, because it is all he can manage, and then he crumples to his knees as his legs finally fail him.


End file.
